Getting Closer

Felicity is getting closer. We are at T -12 days, but I don't think she will go all the way to her due date. She has dropped and her udder is starting to fill. Not that those necessarily mean that she will go early, but her tail head is raised. That is usually a sign that labor is close. There are two ligaments that run at an angle to her spine that will "disappear" when she is within 12-24 hours of delivery. If you are interested this is a good website to go to (scroll down for ligament info).

I can reach around Felicity's tail, but I can also definitely still feel her ligaments. So we are waiting and watching for those ligaments to go. Her udder should also totally fill, though timing for udder fill is different for every doe, so that isn't really a 100% indicator like the "lost" ligaments are.

Because Felicity is already carrying low when she "dropped" the baby(s) didn't really go anywhere. I am seeing her get wider though. This is the time when the babies will be putting on weight.

Here she is today...

Here you can see how her sides stick out, especially when she tried to turn.

In other farm news, we have moved the fence back and the goats now have the back part of the yard again. We are trying to walk a fine line between giving them access to help keep up the yard and too much access and yard destruction. We were starting to get mud around the front where the fence line was. The current fence is temporary. Our plan are to put up a permanent fence that the chickens can't get through. You can see where I have spread the (now defrosted!) hog fuel. That will be where the new fence will go. The chickens and the goats will share that area. We will still keep the other fence and move it around to give the goats temporary access to some areas of the yard.

I cleaned out the shed yesterday and got it bedded and ready for the delivery. Such excitement!

And lest I start thinking that I can really tell when Felicity will deliver, there is the Doe Code...

Doe Code of Honor (author unknown)

The doe's secret code of honor is as old as goats themselves and is the species best kept secret. No doe shall ever kid before its time. (Its time being determined by the following factors):

1- No kid shall be born until total chaos has been reached by all involved. Your owner's house must be a wreck, their family hungry and desperate for clean clothes, and their social life nonexistent.

2- "Midwives" must reach the babbling fool status before you kid out. Bloodshot eyes, tangled hair and the inability to form a sentence mean the time is getting close.

3- For every bell, beeper, camera or whistle they attach to you, kidding must be delayed by at least one day for each item. If they use an audio monitor, one good yell per hour will keep things interesting.

4- If you hear the words, "She's nowhere near ready. She'll be fine while we're away for the weekend," Wait until they load the car, then begin pushing!

5- Owner stress must be at an all time high! If you are in the care of someone else, ten to fifteen phone calls a day is a sign you're getting close.

6- When you hear the words "I can't take it anymore!" wait at least three more days.

7 -You must keep this waiting game interesting. False alarms are mandatory! Little teasers such as looking at your stomach, pushing your food around in the bucket and then walking away from it, and nesting, are always good for a rise. Be creative and find new things to do to keep the adrenaline pumping in those who wait.

8- The honor of all goats is now in your hands. Use this time to avenge all of your barn mates. Think about your friend who had to wear that silly costume in front of those people. Hang onto that baby for another day. OH, they made him do tricks too! Three more days seems fair. Late feedings, the dreaded diet, bad haircuts, those awful wormings can also be avenged at this time.

9- If you have fulfilled all of the above and are still not sure when to have the kids, listen to the weather forecast on the radio that has been so generously provided by those who wait. Severe storm warning is what you're waiting for. In the heart of the storm jump into action! The power could go out and you could have the last laugh. You have a good chance of those who wait missing the whole thing while searching for a flashlight that works!

10- Make the most of your interrupted nights. Beg for food each time someone comes into the barn to check you. Your barn mates will love you as the extra goodies fall their way too.

Remember, this code of honor was designed to remind man of how truly special goats are. Do your best to reward those who wait with a beautiful doeling to carry on the Doe Code of Honor for the next generation of those who wait.

Update

Wow! I didn't realize that it had been so long since an update. Now you see why I can't grow anything. I take care of plants about as well as I take care of my blog. My plants shrivel up and die before I even notice that they were dry. Good thing blogs don't shrivel. Or die.

What is happening with the goats? Good question. Felicity is two and a half weeks out and is starting to waddle.

Here is a picture from 1/20/13. The picture does not really give a good feel for how big she is. She is carrying the baby(s) deep (more down) instead of wide (sideways). From what I've heard, it is harder to figure out how many babies are in there when they carry deep. We will know soon.

 Here is a picture from 12/31/12 for a comparison.

And just because I happened (read: stalked the breeder's site and eventually found old pics. I also found quite a few pics of various grandparents. Or maybe goatparents. Anyway, kinda fun) to have a baby picture of Felicity I thought I would share. Wasn't she a cutie?!

Penny? She is indeed pregnant! Whoo Hoo! Third time's a charm. Her due date is April 24th. I am starting to see a baby bump on her. Here is a picture from 1/20/13 as a "before" shot to compare to. So far, she is carrying higher. Felicity's beginning baby bump was much lower than where Penny is starting. She might carry higher and more out to the sides. 

The chickens are mostly continuing to be free loaders with one giving me an egg every 2-3 days. I have chosen to not put lights in their coop this year. I'm thinking that I will try the lights next year to keep production up even through the winter. That is, if I can figure out a way to run power out there where the goats can't eat the extension cord. 

Our weather here has been wonky. We had an inversion. Which I had no idea what that even was (and still don't really understand why our sky got turned upside down) until we had day after day of fog and freezing temps. Seriously, I love fog and by the end I was so tired of it. I chalk it up to low vitamin D. Because it surely wasn't PMS, probably, well maybe. 

I got a load of hog fuel to spread in the new goat area. I had to wait until the ground was frozen so I could drive through our yard without seriously messing up the grass (and septic system). Then the inversion came and I could drive across my yard, but then my hog fuel froze and has been sitting in a pile ever since. Oops. 

This is what our backyard looked like for a week...

We are back to sun and I didn't even have to break ice on the goat's water bucket yesterday! Yeah! Though I've worked out a pretty good system. I keep an extra bucket inside at night and run warm water out to them in the morning. Ah, the luxury of the life of a goat in suburbia. 

In the mean time, we are prepping for kids. I will be pulling together my kidding kit this next week. Hopefully all will go well and I won't have to assist this time. *fingers crossed.

I will do my best to post pics as soon as the baby(s) are here.

Update

Our little farm is still plugging along. Winter has set in and things are slowing down a bit. Which is good since I have been down with a pretty nasty sinus infection and cough. Bleh.

The plan for ultrasounding the goats didn't work out, so we did blood tests on both goats. Felicity is pregnant and due February 11, 2013. Penny's blood test came back negative, so we bred her again a couple of weeks ago. I will pull blood again in January to see if she took this time around. The blood draw went sooo much better than last time. It took seconds and amazed both my husband (who was geared up for another fainting goat episode) and myself.

Scout came back over for a visit a few days before Penny was supposed to come back into heat. Unfortunately Scout was more interested in the new alfalfa hay than in Penny. As my sister-in-law said, poor Penny, passed over for a buffet. The owner of Scout brought their other buck, Dusty over. Dusty took to the challenge much better and I'm hopeful that Penny took (got pregnant) this time. If not, we will probably look to sell her in a few months and pick up another doe that is either pregnant or milking.

Felicity is starting to get a belly on her and every now and then I can feel the kids moving in there. My preliminary guess is 2 or 3, but we will see how big she really gets. We are 8 weeks out and starting into the time where she should be gaining most of her weight. I am already seeing differences from day to day. When she started to dry up I slowly stopped milking and she has been dry for a couple of weeks now. We sure are missing our milk.

With winter here the kids (human, not goat) are not using the back yard as much so we decided to change things around a bit. We brought the fence line forward. Now the goats have most of the back yard. While goats are great at clearing brush, their hidden talent is eating fallen leaves. They munch them just like potato chips. So far this year we have not had to rake leaves yet!

Some day I will look out on my yard and not see a single toy/truck/sand box. I'm trying to enjoy the days now that my kids are young. This time will be gone too fast and my kids will grow up. So, for now, here is our totally messy back yard. 

Our panel fence has worked really well. We zip tied each panel together and put them up with step-in posts. You can also see that I have attached the water buckets to the fence to give it a bit more stability. They are not galvanized, but they work great and are a fraction of the cost of cattle panels. I wouldn't want to use them for full sized goats and if they were to be used as a main fence (we have a privacy fence all around our back yard, so if they get out it's not like they will have access to a busy street) I would put them in with concreted posts.

The best part of this particular fence type is that it is totally movable. And, anyone that knows me knows that I love to rearrange!

We still have our squirrel hanging around and we have named him, Jumpy. If you are familiar with the Curious George cartoons you will recognize the name. Jumpy has gotten to the point that he will climb into our lap to get food. He will also come to our back door and beg if he gets hungry enough. I think he has fun tormenting our dog and standing just on the other side of the glass out of reach.

Otherwise, we are settling in and enjoying the Christmas season and looking forward to new kids in February!

I worked hard a few weekends ago and got the shed outfitted for the goats. We still need to do permanent fencing for the outside part (so please excuse the white trash look that we're sporting), but the temporary fencing will do for now (I think). With all the rain the last couple of days Penny and Felicity were happy to get a place with a bigger floor plan.

I'm happy with the new set up because I have a dry place to milk. You can see the "wall" that divides the shed down the center. The goats get the right side and I get the left side. I now have storage for feed and I put the milking stanchion in there too. We don't have power to the building, but I bought a Coleman electric LED lantern that I hung from the center rafter. It works pretty well. 

I'm also happy that when kidding time comes around in February we will have a warm, dry place. My back-up plan was the garage. So, not only am I glad to have the shed, my husband is really glad to not have goats in his garage.

The temporary fencing is made from panels of steel reinforcing for concrete. I got that tip from a guy at the hardware store who said his grandparents had goats and used this for fencing. Works great! And is way cheaper than cattle panels.

We have a new animal around the farm (shocking I know! I seem to be collecting animals like they are going out of style). Somehow we have a tame squirrel. He showed up a couple of weeks ago. He doesn't go so far as to let us hold him, but he has no problem with coming up to us to get something to eat. We now have a ton of nuts buried all over our flower beds and lawn. My husband is thrilled let me tell you. It is just for the squirrel that he put in hours upon hours of work to relandscape the front yard. I'm sure that is what he would say if you asked him.

Baby Daddy

Welcome to September!

What? It's not September anymore? Oh, that must be why my head is still spinning.

What a month! It has been so crazy busy. Between school, soccer, ballet, canning, school, soccer, bal....oh, right. Let's just say, it's been crazy.

One of the things that has taken up some of our time was getting Penny bred. The plan was to breed Penny so that she would freshen (give birth and start producing milk) late winter/early spring. It so happened that both girls ended up bred. Oops.

Felicity was showing absolutely no signs of being in heat, so I thought we would throw Scout (the buck) in with both of them and then I would pull Felicity out if she started to get romantic. Alas, 30 seconds after the introductions she and Scout were done and snuggling while smoking a cigarette.

The plan is to ultrasound them in 6-8 weeks to see if they took (actually got pregnant) and see how many babies are in there. If they both took the due dates will be February 12th (Felicity) and 13th (Penny).

Here is the dude himself:

His name is Scout and he is also a Nigerian Dwarf goat. So far all of his babies have been born with blue eyes, so we are anticipating blue eyed babies too.

When male goats go into rut (breeding season) they think that the ladies swoon at the smell of their pee. Unfortunately they are right. So, the bucks pee on themselves  (and please don't ask me to explain how this is accomplished). All over, but with special care given to making sure that their head/face/beard is especially pungent. Scout normally has white ears. As you can see in the first picture, they are not white at this time of year. Eewwww.

Otherwise, he is quite a cutie and has a rather sweet personality. 

We are also working on cleaning out the shed and converting it over to being a barn. We (read: my sweet hard-working husband) got everything (mostly) out of the shed and stowed in the garage this weekend. The next step is to paint the floor since it is wood and we don't want to rot it out. Then we will divide it (half for the goats and half for storage/milking area) and fence the new goat area. It will be nice to have a bigger covered space for milking and delivering kids in February. The plan is to also move the chickens into the same area and the goats and chickens will share the new "pasture" space. That should help cut down on the amount of chicken poo that I have to clean off my patio each day. 

Update

We are getting some things in our CSA shares this summer that are different than we have ever gotten before. I'm really liking the adventure of trying new things. There are more options with heirloom vegetables, like the lemon cucumbers from last week and the heirloom tomatoes this week.

I tried the new cucumbers. They were really good. Very cucumbery. I had them in a salad with my SIL.

Oh, wait, that doesn't sound right at all! I had them in a salad that I shared with my SIL. It was a good salad and great company.

Our CSA this week:
Green apples (if I can fend off the kids I will make Morning Glory muffins with them), Fennel (again I love, love it with the chicken), lettuce (salad all the way!), pluots (the kids eat them raw and they are great for after school), I picked basil and cherry tomatoes ( the basil will go into bruschetta and I'm going to dehydrate the tomatoes for this winter), a head of cabbage (we have found that we really love this recipe), a beet (I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this yet - maybe juice it), an onion, 2 different tomatoes - 1 persimmon tomato and 1 cherokee green (they are both new to us. Usually we totally go over board this time of year with bruschetta. So, chances are that that is where these two are headed), and 2 ears of corn.

What is happening with the goats? I'm so glad you asked.

All I can say is that I hope when my daughter is a teenager she reject the advances of boys half as well as my goat is currently. We invited the buck over Sunday for a little get-to-know-you. Penny wanted nothing to do with getting-to-know him. *sigh

Our next option is to try a shot that will bring her into heat. It's an easy enough solution. We will see if it pans out. The plan is to give her a shot and then in 65-75 hours she will be ready to be bred. It sure would be nice for the scheduling aspect of this process. I have read that while it brings on a heat cycle it does not cause ovulation. But, you never know with internet info. I have a call into my vet to double check this, but his office assistant seems to think that all will be well and we have a good chance at a successful breeding. It just goes to show that the internet is not always right. Dang it, here I thought everything I read on the interweb was always totally true.

Right now we are looking at the possibility of a Valentine's Day baby. *fingers crossed!

We are seriously considering getting another goat so that we have 3 and it wouldn't be such a big deal to ship one goat off to be bred. We can't do that now because that would leave Felicity home alone. And as they say, "a single goat is a naughty goat". They cry and cry and cry. I want to keep my neighbors happy, so no single goats here.

But, we do feel a little like the frog in the kettle. My husband originally said, "Sure, let's try one goat". Poor guy, didn't know what he was getting into. Well, except that he does have 16 years of experience being married to me and that gives him a heads up that this is probably going to get a little hairy (I call it adventure and being spontaneous, he calls it lack of planning). So, I'm thinking no more than 4 goats. Or thereabouts. Probably.

I've been super busy here. I had a death in the family on one side, then a little family reunion with the other side a week later. Plus, canning season is here. I have done a little canning in the past, but I want to do quite a bit this year. I started today with a pear relish that was my grandmother's recipe. It is super good on beans and cornbread. It's also good with turkey sandwiches. Next I want to can some tomatoes. If I still have energy after that I will see what I will tackle.

CSA

This is the time of year that our CSA makes up for the shares in the Spring that are not only small, but also mostly leafy greens.

This week we got:
Top left: green beans, lettuce, heirloom tomato (oh, this is so going to be bruschetta with my homemade bread from this book - LOVE the book!), summer squash (we got a mix of pattypan, scallopini, and globe squash - at least I'm pretty sure that's what I have),  broccoli, carrots, pluots, green onions, lemon cucumber (not sure what I'm going to use these for, but supposedly I can use them for anything I would normally use a regular green cucumber), fennel (which I make this recipe. I originally got the recipe from my SIL, but was able to find a link to it on the internet - Yeah for the web having everything!), and from the U-pick area I got basil (will be going with the heirloom tomato to make bruschetta - I have adjusted this recipe a bit, but really The Pioneer Woman has never let me down, I often cook from recipes on her site) and some cherry tomatoes (which will go in with the fennel recipe).

The rest of the farmlette is doing well. The chickens are happy and we are letting them start to free range a bit more with only the random egg being laid outside of the nesting boxes. 

We are still working on getting Penny bred. She is not cooperating by going into heat in a manner that works with the schedules of those involved. Goats only go into heat for about 24 hours every 21 days. This makes it a bit challenging. But, I'm learning a lot and hopefully will be better able to get this done when Felicity's turn comes up in the Spring.